WEST (T[emple]?) designer.
The Hopes of the Nation in its perilous situation.
“I LOVE TO BE DRILLED DEARLY”
UNRECORDED. We have been unable to locate any other examples of this print. This is the impression offered in the Latta sale in 1913 described as “The only recorded copy” (“Unequalled collection relating to Napoleon and the French Revolution of William J. Latta of Philadelphia, PA.” sold at Anderson Galleries, New York, in 1913, lot 2023).
A remarkable and otherwise unknown print satirising the fear of invasion by Napoleon in 1803 showing a group of fashionable ladies being trained in military drills with a marked sexual overtone.
The drill sergeant suggestively tells the women assembled before him to, “let your legs keep time always with the person in your front” while the women respond in an equally suggestive way calling out, “I love to be drilled dearly” and “I can lift my legs as well as any but I move them too fast in all my motions.”
This print is notable for not only satirising the national fear of invasion in 1803 but also taking aim at women’s fashion. The women shown in the print wear parodies of the fashion of the day with their legs and breasts exposed and one woman has an elaborate feather in her hair.
Temple West was an amateur caricaturist who produced a number of designs for Holland. It may well be that the language used in the print was too suggestive and that it was not distributed widely.
